That Distant Horizon

Then there are those times when it seems the world has become a desert we trudge through, day after day, until we know longer know why we are walking, or where we are going. All that we seem to know is the same trudging on day-after-day, never sure of a destination and never sure if we are going around and around in circles.

Each day looks the same and begins with that first slow, unwilling, step and then the next… and soon it feels like we have been walking this way forever. There is no feature, no city, no oasis, no shoreline on the distant horizon for us to walk towards, just this same featureless desert that stretches from horizon to horizon all around us. There is no place of shade or shelter, there are only frequent howling sandstorms that rob us of any sense of direction or progress beyond this seemingly futile trudging onward.

Of course, once upon a time there used to be fairy stories of promised lands, of fates and destinies and purposes. Now though we have walked too far for any of that to be taken seriously. So many such promises have fallen by the wayside as we trudge on; we no longer have the will or the energy to believe in them any more.

Still, though, we trudge on and on, still somehow believing – despite all the evidence – that there must be something we are walking towards, some promise that lies just beyond that distant horizon.